Testimony of Healing November 9, 1907 Issue

For some time I have hesitated to give my testimony...

Louise Knight Wheatley

For some time I have hesitated to give my testimony for Christian Science, lest it be considered too small to be acceptable, but I have come to see that this is not the right thought, remembering that our Master commended the woman who cast "two mites" into the treasury, even though her offering was the smallest of all. So even if my understanding of Christian Science is not so great as it will be later on, it is the best and all I have to give, and I give it gladly. And my tribute to this spiritual treasure-house, from which I have for weeks and months taken out so much and until now have added nothing, is this: While Christian Science has helped me in many ways, spiritually, physically, and financially, I have one reason for being' grateful which from my present point of view seems to transcend them all, and that is to know that in this new-old religion I have at last found an absolute and infallible means of separating between right and wrong. I have always believed that more of us would do right if we only knew what the right was; but human problems have a way of seeming so complicated. Until coming into Christian Science I was a member of an orthodox church, had been a member all my life. When these hard questions arose, and decisions which often involved the happiness of others besides myself were left in my hands, I would beg and beseech my heavenly Father to show me the way, promising I would walk in it, no matter how hard it might be; but I would rise from my knees, and go straight on making mistakes, to be repented of later in tears of anguish. Then, like the prophets of Baal, I thought that perhaps I must "cry louder," and beg Him a little harder, but even that did not suffice.

Just at this point Christian Science came to me, or rather I went to it, in the midst of a great sorrow, and I found a God who does listen, who does love, and who does care for His children. Nor do I have to beg and plead with Him to do this, for I have learned that God's work is already done. He finished His work; He saw everything that He had made, and "behold, it was very good." If it seems not so to us, we must not criticise the work, nor blame the Master-workman but look within, to make sure that no clouds of human will and human opinion and human pride in our own judgment and intelligence are obscuring the pure light of the only wisdom and the only intelligence that really exist. Is it any wonder that, standing within the borders of this beautiful realm, I look about me almost in bewilderment as I catch my first faint glimpses of that which lies before me, the glories "which God hath prepared for them that love him"?

Is it any wonder that I am very grateful to Mrs. Eddy for the text-book. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which has made this better understanding of God possible and has illumined the Bible until it has become the most absorbing book I have ever read? It is so good to know that what Browning calls "the sad things, and the bad things, and the mad things" have no place in God's world, and that they can never return to me until I admit them into my thought. I have only to bring to bear upon error this touchstone of Christian Science and the right will shine forth as the sun at noonday. And I can go on with a song in my heart, knowing that I not only see this plain path, but, seeing it, I have courage to walk therein, not because God gives me strength, but because God is my strength. So I repeat that for this sweet assurance of unfailing guidance I am supremely thankful. But I realize also that it is not enough to express myself in "words, words, words," for "do not even the publicans the same?" To really prove my gratitude I must live it, humbly following our blessed Master in deeds of love and self-forget-fulness.

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